Olivia de Beaufort seems to have it all but is wildly unhappy, living the life her parents set out for her. Night after night Olivia’s parents drag their “heiress daughter” to balls and dinner parties in order to marry her off and secure the family fortune. When a young polar fox escapes the zoo and ends up in her room, Olivia has to choose between living the life of an heiress or a life of adventure. Choosing the latter, Olivia and the fox set sail for the arctic to help him return home.

These images are from the first chapter of The Heiress. The book will combine the lush imagery of a picture book with the storytelling of a chapter book.

For The Heiress, I combined soft brush pens for Olivia de Beaufort with thick layers of gouache for the backgrounds. I really wanted to convey the claustrophobic feeling of being stuck in a space, while emphasizing that Olivia does not belong in this environment.

I thoroughly researched zoo’s and arctic expeditions throughout the first half of the 20th century.